Another snow day

Not a great day for gardening here. The white sheet is an attempt to protect the buds on our apple tree. We bought trees that bloom early, which is a problem when we have so much frost after the fake spring we had a couple of weeks ago. I should have known that there was some reason why these two trees had been at Pikes for so long.

Our first plants have started to sprout under the grow lights. The lettuce and cauliflower are out of the dirt first. The tomatoes, peppers and egg plant should be coming out soon.

The snow and ice caused a serious problem. I was being the good husband and taking the garbage out when I slipped on the icy steps. I went down hard and my ribs landed on the step. I was in so much pain I couldn't get up. I had to crawl inside to get to Joy. I had to lay on the kitchen floor until the ambulance arrived. Since I had fallen they strapped me to a board, loaded me on the ambulance and took me to Piedmont Hospital. It took them over four hours to tell me I had a broken rib. If you don't think we have a problem with health care then you have not spent any time in an emergency room. The ER is filled and backed up not with real emergencies, its filled with people who have no health insurance and have to go there for minor issues.

Hopefully I'll be mended soon and able to work the garden. For now I'm on the couch being thankful for my wonderful wife and for pain medicine.

STARTING THE GARDEN

When Joy and I got together three years ago she had a beautiful back yard. The previous owners had left her with a formal perennial garden with statues, fountains and goldfish pond. When Buck & Paco joined Ziggy & Radar the yard was in trouble.

Given my manly need to tear down, rip out, plow over and rebuild meant that the formal garden was headed for upheaval.

We wanted to grow something we could eat so we put in several tomato plants. Buck and Radar were in heaven when they realized that they had tennis balls growing from vines. As soon as they had one in their mouth and discovered that these were actually tasty, juicy tomatoes I knew I had to work to keep them out. We built fence to keep them out, but they were able to get in but couldn't get out. That's when we decided to get rid of everything and put in raised beds that we could grow a vegetable and fruit garden in the that would also keep the dogs out.



By mid summer last year we had a garden that provided fresh salads and other vegetables until frost. This year we are excited to be starting our plants from seeds under grow lights in m office.

We are following Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening plan, http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
I thought it would be fun to keep track of everything for me and maybe someone else will enjoy as well. So here it goes.